This Week’s Steinway: ‘The Prince’s Love Piano’

Masterfully restored, the artwork on this piano was commissioned by a Prussian prince

A Sonny’s Art Case piano with a player system sets the tone for your dream home. For the perfect finishing touch, choose from one of Sonny’s masterfully restored pianos featuring Chinoiserie, Vernis Martin, Chippendale, King Louis, ornate Steinways and other brands and enjoy beautiful music year-round. And ask us about customizing an Art Case piano to match your decor.

This week’s Steinway is the Prince’s Love Piano. Originally owned by a Prussian prince, this exceptional Art Case Steinway model A 6’1” piano has been masterfully rebuilt and professionally restored in 2015 to its original luster and performance by Sonny’s Art Case Pianos in Bohemia, New York. This beautiful and rare musical instrument was built in Steinway & Sons Hamburg, Germany, factory in 1900. It was sold to a prince in La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland, according to Steinway’s records.

The prince commissioned an artist to create beautiful Romantic era scenes on the piano to immortalize his passion for his lover, hence the nickname “Prince’s Love Piano.” An art historian characterized the paintings as Vernis Martin style, depicting pastoral scenes of love and romance, with scrolling tendrils painted in gold, and colorful flowers and garlands on the case and legs.

Named for the Martin brothers of Paris, Vernis Martin was an 18th century painting technique created to replicate Asian lacquer. The romantic pastoral scenes on the piano include two lovers intertwined on the lid. The male figure wears a crown of garlands and the woman has red hair, their fair skin typical of northern Europeans. Two baby angels, representing their younger selves, also appear on the lid.

In the late 1920s the previous owner’s aunt purchased the piano at Sotheby’s Auction house in London.

This incredible instrument has been completely restored to its original performance level, with a new Bouldoc spruce soundboard and pinblock, new Hamburg Steinway wippens, new Steinway New York hammers and shanks, all new strings and Mapes bass strings and new dampers. An age-appropriate decal has been affixed to the soundboard, and the plate reguilded.

The action has been regulated to concert-stage performance level. The tone of this piano is a rainbow of sublime character. With the restoration of the original art scenes by two professional artists, this piano is both a visual and auditory marvel.